The Newsome Centre is a Community Benefit Society established in 2022. The board consist of representatives from the Church of England, Newsome Academy and local Kirklees Councillors. We have established the community benefit society with help from Cooperative Mutual Solutions Limited.
We have established our model rules and policies that we need to operate, hold regular Board meetings and have set up a bank account.
The purpose of a community benefit society is to serve the broader interests of the community, in contrast to co-operative societies that serve the interests of members. The 2014 Act requires a community benefit society to “carry on a business, industry or trade” that is “being, or intended to be, conducted for the benefit of the community”. But the Act does not provide any further definition or description of what a community benefit society is, creating a reliance on the FCA’s registration guidance. The FCA focuses on four key characteristics of a community benefit society:
Purpose: The FCA says that “the conduct of a community benefit society’s business must be entirely for the benefit of the community.” There can be no alternative or secondary purposes, including any that may preferentially benefit the members.
Membership: In common with all societies, community benefit societies normally have members who hold shares and are accorded democratic rights on the basis on one-member-one-vote. The FCA says “it is not usually appropriate for a community benefit society to give any particular group of members greater rights or benefits, because the society must be conducting its business for the benefit of the community. So, for example, we would expect to see community benefit societies run democratically on the basis of one-member-one-vote.
